


cacoëthes

by Hexmage



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Gen, cait's tagged because she's mentioned but she doesn't physically appear, the original male character is C but i'm not going to bother to make a tag for him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:33:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28560624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hexmage/pseuds/Hexmage
Summary: an irresistible urge to do something inadvisable; an overwhelming desire
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	cacoëthes

**Author's Note:**

> C has been retconned and replaced for four years. Who cares? I still love what he could have been.

The subway station is done up in pretty little lights, glowing gold. He’d gotten the old fixtures working, too: it had been difficult (those old bulbs are hard to track down) but the way they cast light and shadow on the walls is something beautiful in itself.

And then there’s the art and relics, awash in it all. He has quite the collection, down here, and absolutely none of it is legally obtained. An ice-blue crystal glimmers on one display pillow, a greatsword on another. Paintings - stormy seas, bucolic meadows, noble lords and ladies staring down in disapproval and mirth - hang from nails he’s driven into the mortar. It’s no museum, it’s not one at all, and there’s more dust in the air than he’d like: but he tries to keep everything clean, tries to keep the art preserved and metal shining. All beauty needs to be restored eventually.

He spins, taking in everything at once, and lets out a loud laugh. No one can hear him down here, buried by over fifty feet of stone and earth, and he’s all the better for it. It’s just him and his possessions and his thoughts. Oh, and music; he should turn the record player on and let it echo off the brick walls. He’s brought a bottle of wine down, and a glass too. Might as well cap off the week like this. He hasn’t celebrated in a while, and it’s starting to get to him.

The bottle’s uncorked, a glass is poured, and he slumps down into the worn leather chair he’d dragged down here a few months back. He kicks his feet over one armrest, leans his back against the other, and takes a sip of wine. A painting of the Ironspikes wreathed in snow and fog catches his half-closed eyes. It would be nice to visit, the next chance he gets. Piltover’s his home, always has been, but sometimes the steady thrumming of its heart drops out of sync with his own and he simply _has_ to leave before the dissonance overwhelms him. So he travels to the countryside, or Demacia or the Freljord or Noxus or, on one memorable occasion, Bilgewater, until his heart settles in his chest and Piltover’s colors match his own once again.

He always takes something back with him, of course. And if his departures often happen to correspond with times where those _somethings_ were vulnerable to quick hands and a vanishing act, then…! His eyes flit to a helm, his mind to the history behind it. It’s a tragedy of grief and loss, and he doubts that the Artificers’ Guild cared for that tale at all. He doubts most of Demacia cared for the fate of that young yordle or her father. But he does, and so looking at that helm with its center-set sapphire fills him with a bittersweet sort of feeling.

He’s cried over it, before, but that’s nothing out-of-character. He’s cried over most of the pieces in this private gallery of his: tears of awe and beauty and compassion.

* * *

It’s later, and the record’s ended. He’s down a glass and a half of wine, all sipped away as he’d studied painting after sculpture after metalwork. He gets to his feet, unsteadier than he expected, and changes the vinyl out in favor of another one, turns the volume down. This one’s more somber, anyways. Then it’s back to his chair, leaning against the other armrest this time. There’s always more to look at.

There’s a portrait on the opposite wall that looks like her. He’d stolen it sometime after she’d picked up his case, after she’d started collecting his cards. It’s not an exact match (oh, he’s certain that her family has a portrait of her somewhere - but that’s a bit too close to home, isn’t it?) but her eyes are that same startling blue. He toasts her, laughing.

“To another lifetime of this,” he says, swirling the wine in his glass. “And another after that.”

He pauses, thinks about it. “Maybe a fourth, too, for good measure.”

Or a fifth, or a sixth… But he has to stop himself somewhere, doesn’t he? There won’t be any bare walls in this station, at one point. He’ll have to find another, if he doesn’t stop. If he isn’t caught.

Wouldn’t that be something? He’d been worried about it, that time in Demacia, but he’d gotten out of that jam with some work. He’s been more careful since, even as the odd discontent has grown in the pit of his stomach. It would be silly to _want_ to be caught - he’s sure that he’d be put away for life for the sheer quantity of his thievery - and yet…

And yet he wonders what she’d say. Would she be happy? Victorious? He can’t delude himself into thinking that she’d _thank_ him, even though they both know exactly what he’s doing. (Well, he thinks she knows. But she’s still confused on his pseudonym’s meaning, even though it stares at her in the mirror every morning.) She needs a challenge in her life, and he’s been providing what the city of Piltover can’t.

“I’d like to think that you’d be happy,” he murmurs, eyes closed. “I’d like to think that I could bring you more than the thrill of the chase, even if I’m put away for it.”

His glass is empty, and he considers pouring a third. But he’s still got to get back, tonight, to the overworld where he’s just another man in the crowd. Not this underworld of his, in all its splendor.

He always waxes poetic when drunk. The needle’s gone into the runout groove.

“I’d like to think-” he bites his lip, as if confessing it to the air is some sort of crime that even _he_ is wary of committing. “I’d like to think that you wouldn’t.”

The moment ends. He needs to get home, even though this is more his home than that silly little apartment. His movements are steady enough as he puts the record away, as he checks over each painting and prized possession, as he corks his wine. He puts on his headlamp and throws the main switch, plunging the station into darkness.

The beam from his lamp falls onto her portrait, and he smiles a crooked grin.

“I’ll see you another day.”

**Author's Note:**

> Crosspossed on fanfiction.online, which I'm on as @hexmage. Go follow me there, probably, because I think I'll be using it more than AO3 in the future.  
> Anyways. I'm the king of taking characters with absolutely no lore and doing stuff with them, I guess? Please appreciate C. If you want to know more about him, go read Caitlyn's Judgment on the wiki - that's really all that he appears in.


End file.
